I am still finding my feet with graphic novels, but I definitely enjoyed The Last Delivery.

Readers follow the Deliverer - just a little guy trying to do his job - through a house of hedonistic terrors. The art style caught my eye, and the tone communicated on the cover is a good indication of the type of story you're about to read - it's dark and frustrating!

The Deliverer is dedicated to completing his task, willing to put himself at risk if required. He just needs SOMEONE to sign for the damn package. Despite my own frustration, the Deliverer maintains his professionalism throughout. I felt Dahm was examining the toxic nature of live-to-work culture and the tendency for employees to put their own well-being below their work. Paired with the debauchery and madness taking place in the house, the Deliverer becomes a tragic figure and I was hoping he'd just drop the package and leave in the next panel.

This was a fun, quick read and the art beautifully adds to the unsettling narrative!

This book was incredibly frustrating to read, but I think it's meant to be that way. Our poor main character just wants to do his job and deliver his package and things keep getting in the way. Some of what happens don't entirely make sense, but it's not supposed to. The house he enters into is in complete chaos because of a horrific party occurring inside. Our main character get beaten, pushed around, stabbed and he still pushes on because he has a job to do. The ending made me wonder if it was some kind of statement on not making your job the most important thing in your life.

I don’t really know what to make of The Last Delivery by Evan Dahm. I chose it because it looked cute. The main character is indeed cute and just a precious soul, but what they experience is genuinely horrendous. Little buddy is just trying to deliver a package, but the house of the recipient is “fun house” of chaos and cruelty with real Hotel California vibes. It feels heavily allegorical, and I suppose it’s not hiding much considering its title.

The artwork is beautifully striking, but the story is nightmarishly heartbreaking. That doesn’t mean it isn’t good; it’s just not for me.

Full review posted on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6155603690

Oh man, I was rooting for the little delivery man the entire time! Every time he got kicked down, he would reach into his uniform pocket and whip out a new delivery cap. For anyone in the delivery business, this graphic novel must be a personal nightmare of confusion and anxiety.

I thought this was a great story, and I certainly did not expect the ending, and the contents of the package. Kudos to the author!

3.5 stars

A twisted and brutal phantasmagoria delivered via sublime art. Pastels, dusky colours and earthy tones contrasted with pencil shading to complement the dark nature of the story, can you tell I am obsessed?

This book invoked such a sense of unease and dread as we follow an unnamed delivery creature, one so cute and pure you immediately want to protect it, in its harrowing journey just trying to deliver a goddamned parcel. It is a claustrophobic, unpredictable acid trip that I oddly enjoyed. However, the ending fell a little flat for me. Spoiler: I understand that the ambiguity and abruptness are the point, but after seeing all the brutality of the journey I wished that there was some closure for our little guy. Some sort of comeuppance or escape from the tyranny of the Resident.

Thank you to NetGalley, Iron Circus Comics and the author for this advance reader copy. I leave this review voluntarily.

In this brilliantly illustrated graphic novel, we follow a delivery boy through a seemingly endless and expansive mansion. Despite the many surreal, bizarre, and dangerous obstacles he encounters, the small delivery boy remains determined to obtain a signature for the delivery box. I loved the illustrations in The Last Delivery, which made possible the sense of chaos and phantasmagoria.

Though I enjoyed the artwork, I'm not really sure I enjoyed the story. A delivery person is so committed to their company's bottom line of how things are delivered that they put themselves through absolute hell to make their last delivery only for that delivery to not be worth it in the end. I'm sure there's a lesson in there somewhere. This one was just not for me.

This was an interesting little read. I love the illustrations, colors, and the cast of characters. It was a very unique story and while I wouldn’t necessarily call it horror, I definitely cringed several times and felt bad for the guy. It was both cute and unsettling at the same time.

This had Jim Henson’s Labyrinth and Dark Crystal vibes, so I would recommend it for fans of those movies and graphic novels!

Imagine seeing Prospero's Masque of the Red Death through the eyes of a little delivery boy just trying to get through his shift. This dark, delightfully Poe-ish fantasy graphic novel twists and turns and keeps you trotting along with it. The worldbuilding in the story is masterful, and the humor and absurdity really lend themselves to a variety of readings on the text.

Net Galley and Evan Dahm along with Iron Circus Comics gave me this ARC. I can't possibly thank them enough. Look for a show on Indie Comics Spotlight before this comes out in June.
If Kafka wrote Sisyphus it would come close to what this is. Is it depressing? Is it life affirming? Is it an indictment of the way we value work? Can it be all of those things? Hot damn.

**Disclaimer: I received a free eARC of The Last Delivery by Evan Dahm through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.  Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for this opportunity.

The Last Delivery by Evan Dahm is a horror graphic novel about a delivery man who must deliver a parcel to the resident of a large sprawling house where a ginormous, but twisted party is happening.  It is set to be published on June 11th, 2024.  I rated it 4 stars on Goodreads.

Here's the summary from Goodreads:

An anonymous parcel delivery boy arrives at a sprawling, chaotic mansion, in search of The Resident, who must sign for the package he bears, but this isn’t nearly as simple a task as it should be. The mansion hosts an endless, frenzied party, and the partygoers impede his every step. As the quest takes him further into the dripping, black bowels of the labyrinthine house, his mission galvanizes into his single purpose for existence, and his determination to find The Resident may well prove his undoing. A phantasmagoric dark fantasy unlike anything you’ve ever explored before, from the wild imagination behind RICE BOY and THE HARROWING OF HELL.

This was a fascinating read.  I really enjoyed the premise of a delivery man just trying to do his job but being stymied at every turn by people who don't want to help him because they are too preoccupied by the party that they are attending.  He's a very empathetic character because all he wants is to do his job but he is unable to do it because no one is willing to either sign for the parcel or to tell him where the resident is.

It was horrifying to read about the party and the way that things were playing out and the things that people were excited about.  It wasn't particularly graphic in the horror, but it was twisted and twisty, and deeply haunting in the hedonistic nature of most of the side characters.  The things that happen to the main character are very strange, but they definitely add to the feeling of empathy you have for him.

I liked the art style and the way that the illustrator was able to get a lot across without always using dialogue.  The panels were beautiful, and there was some really good use of colour.  I found it very enjoyable to look at as I was reading through.

If you were at all intrigued by this premise, then I would definitely suggest that you pick up this book when it comes out.

An unnamed delivery person's simple task to deliver a package to the resident of a sprawling mansion is turned into a bizarre nightmare by the unending, all-consuming, phantasmagoric party that is taking place inside.

Evan Dahm creates a truly absurdist hell of a space to set this story in, with a mansion that is engulfed not in flames but in wild, debauched revelry and excess. The artwork immediately grabs this feeling and runs with it, creating an exhausting and beautiful chaos that drew me in from the early pages. Reading this and trying to understand the scale and meaning behind anything going on within the residence is an exercise in futility, the structure itself seems to be miles long with pools, subterranean features, entire levels of mechanical equipment, and more that our hapless delivery person finds themselves exploring in an attempt to just do their job and leave.

With the delivery person in mind, I will say that character development is seemingly not the goal of Dahm in this graphic novel, nor is exploring connections between characters. Most interactions follow the same patterns, with the partygoers being almost uniformly unhelpful, if not downright malicious and nearly inhuman when asked for aid by the delivery person in seeking the master of these revels, and the employees offering only a small modicum of connection that the reader will cling to before being thrown back into the chaos of the party.

For those wishing for a cynical and darkly humorous story that is heavy on atmosphere and light on finer details and character work, this is an excellent read that will stay with them for a long time.

The delivery boy stoically carries out his last assignment, which takes him to a large house where a seemingly endless party is taking place. In order to find the master of the house to whom the parcel is to be delivered, the delivery boy must resist many distractions.
Scurrilous, grotesque, open to multiple interpretations, marvellous!
Reminded me of the theater in Hesse's Steppenwolf.

this short graphic novel shows the dark side of decadence, an illustrious and grotesque setting all at once. our protagonist's journey through this abyssal mansion is action-packed and heartbreaking. an excellent one-shot that gives insight onto the greater perversions of our nature and how following the rules often can bring our demise.

This was certainly creative and on the absurdist side of things, which is normally a hit or miss for me, but this one actually feel somewhere in the middle. The art style was also somewhere between being uncomfortable and being easy on the eyes. I really appreciated what I assume to be the overall story of how too much of anything, swaying too far one way, not having enough balance in life is never good. I felt this as the main character searched the house and found people staying too true to their role and the rules of it, including the character itself, but it made for a steady plot that was disappointing in the sense of no one changing their rules for the story. A tale of caution for staying in your box.

This is a wonderful graphic novel. Shakespearean in its tragedy, the contrast of old English, modern English, and made-up words create a sense of ancient timelessness.
The simple single-colored backgrounds pull the reader's focus to the emotions and details of the characters. The underlying conversation about defining yourself by your occupation is brought out by the simple debauchery of it all.

While I like this author's art style I found that I neither enjoy nor saw any point in the story. I can definitely get on board with the absurd but this didn't land for me. It was only after finishing that I saw Evan Dahm also wrote The Island Book which I had very similar feelings about.

Thanks to NetGalley, Evan Dahm, and Iron Circus for the advanced readers copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

I'm of two minds for this one. For one, the art was beautiful, and some of the characters were very well defined and fun to follow on the page. For the art alone I'd rate this highly.

For the other, the environment struck me as nonsense, and every time we followed the deliverer anywhere, I was just as confused and disoriented as he was. While the plot is simple ("Get a package to the house's resident and get a signature"), following it was somehow exceptionally difficult.

I'll absolutely recommend this to the right reader, I'll just have to spend some time figuring out exactly who that reader is.

The Last Delivery is a graphic novel about an unnamed delivery man and his hellish quest to deliver a package in a sprawling, maze-like mansion. Very dark and Kafkaesque. Any fan of adult graphic novels is sure to enjoy this book.

The Last Deliver by Evan Dahm is a unique, somewhat whimsical, somewhat cynical read. I appreciated the artwork and the skill in sequential storytelling. The main character is an easy every-man sort that the reader can follow along with. Overall a worthwhile read.